Adagietto for String Orchestra was written for the Wheeling Symphony’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of Wheeling Jesuit University. (Wheeling Jesuit University sponsored Danielpour’s commissioned work.) While completing it, the composer commented on the project, noting, “The work itself will be an exciting fusion, being written as it is for Wheeling—one of the smallest cities to maintain an orchestra of this caliber, outreach, and budget—in honor of the Jesuit community and Wheeling Jesuit University.”

The Adagietto for Strings is an arrangement of the last movement of the composer’s String Quartet No. 5, subtitled “In Search of ‘La Vita Nuova.’” Danielpour gave the Adagietto an epilogue, in which he quotes Proust: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Danielpour has commented, “There is something essential about this piece. In Search of ‘La Vita Nuova’ means ‘the new life,’ really the ‘transformed life.’ It is subtitled in Italian because I have, over the past 20 years, had a long-standing love affair with certain parts of Europe, particularly Italy. That country has become a metaphor for that magical place where I can go to be renewed, but I realize now, after nearly two decades, that the magical place that one seeks is ultimately within.”